Day 1 - first steps

Cape Reinga - Twilight Campsite 12km

I was so nervous this morning. Loading food for five days into our bags made me worry that we’d done this all wrong. Are we going to have enough room for when we need to pack 10 days worth?! Josh very rightly reminded me that we were just starting out and that we hadn’t really worked out what we would actually eat every day yet. I calmed down, but it didn’t stop my bag weighing as much as a baby elephant.

Brian picked us up at 9am (great Kiwi, imported Japanese car) and we drove the two hours or so up to the Cape. Josh slept the whole way. By 11am we were at the starting point and it dawned on me that we were finally here. I had a little happy cry and we skipped down the first few steps to the beach.

Despite our bags rubbing in all the wrong places, the walk today was pretty straight forward. Down to the beach, dodge the waves, cross a stream, up some sand dunes, across some bush and back down to another beach.

We arrived at camp around 3.30pm and 5 other TA hikers followed shortly after. Who said December was for NOBO?! Realising that we weren’t the only people attempting this was pretty comforting.

After putting our tent up in the drizzle, we spent a few hours getting to know the other hikers, wolfed down some genuinely delicious dehydrated butter chicken and retired to bed pretty early. We were pooped.

Brekkie: Oats

Lunch: Ham avo and tomato rolls (squished) and a hard boiled egg.

Dinner: Backcountry Butter Chicken